I think “life is an experiment” is a phrase I take way too seriously. 😀
I needed a recipe for buns – I’d been craving a Subway meatball sub, and since the nearest Subway is in India, I figured the only way I was going to get a meatball sub would be to make my own.
I have no idea why I opted on a kaiser bun recipe, except that a kaiser bun has a similar texture, crumb, and hole that I was looking for in a bun, so I figured, hey, why not? Like I said, I think I take “life is an experiment’ way to seriously. 😛
The recipe was already in grams and already converted to wild yeast. All that was left for me to do was halve it and, well, make it. 🙂
Oh, yeah. In case you’re wondering about my sanity, Fahim’s the one who comes up with the crazy titles. Kaiser Soze Rolls is his creation. 🙂
Kaiser Soze Rolls
Makes 6 monster buns or 8 hamburger-sized buns
Ingredients
- 140 grams (1/2 cup) sourdough starter
- 125 grams (1/2 cup) water
- 1 egg (large, about 50 grams)
- 13 grams (1 tablespoon) olive oil
- 26 grams (1 tablespoon + 2 teaspoons) sugar
- 335 grams (2 3/4 cups) flour
- 7 grams (1 teaspoon) salt
Method:
- Mix the ingredients until they come together, then let sit for 20-30 minutes (autolyse). You can then do stretch and folds or knead for 5 minutes, cover the dough and allow it to rest for 5 minutes, and then knead for another 5 minutes.
- Once the stretch and fold has been completed, or once the dough has doubled in size, divide the dough into 12 more or less equal sized pieces.
- Roll the dough into balls as if you were forming little boules.
- As you form the rolls, set them aside and cover them so they won’t dry out and let the dough relax about 20 minutes. While the dough is relaxing, put a sheet of parchment paper onto a baking sheet. Once the dough has relaxed, form into rolls or buns or whatever is the shape of the day.
- Pre-heat your oven to 425 F (220 Celsius). I strongly suggest steaming the oven as you put the rolls into the oven. Just before baking the rolls, flip them over so they are cut side up. Bake for 15 minutes, turning the rolls half way through the bake. Immediately put the rolls on a cooling rack. You want a crisp and nicely browned crust. More than half of bread’s taste is in the crust, and it is developed by browning – don’t shortchange yourself on the flavor you can get out of the roll by underbaking it.
Fahim doesn’t like honey, and to him, the taste and smell of the honey in this bread is noticeable, so I subbed it out with water and sugar. Didn’t do that the first two times I made the bread, so I’m listing an untried-but-close-enough-that-I-feel-comfortable-posting-it variation on the recipe. 😛
The first time I made this, I formed the dough into hoagie-type buns for sub sandwiches. I was, unfortunately, in a time crunch to get them done in time for a specific meal, so they didn’t rise as much as they should have, and given that my oven is still broken (that’ll be still broken until it dies enough to buy a new one), I didn’t get enough oven spring to compensate.
I served them as meatball subs with my pickled Nai Miris (cobra peppers – hottest in the world) on top. Yum!
The second time, I shaped these into round buns of roughly the same size, but not entirely, so I had a couple that were entirely a lot bigger than the others. All told, though, they were all bigger than hamburger buns. The two biggest were quite the monsters, in fact. Tasted good, nice and fluffy (I let them rise for the proper amount of volume increase this time), but huge.
This recipe is supposed to be for six 3 1/2 ounce Kaiser Rolls, which is also a great size for hamburger buns. Except, no. They’re much bigger than that.
The second time I made these, I made an oven-baked barbequed chicken, onion, & bell pepper dish that I served as sandwich filling. Oh yeah, baby! 😀
Tags: wild yeast, sourdough, kaiser rolls, buns, hoagie rolls, bread